The Four Color Media Monitor

WGN9 from Chicago is adding to the tiresome, unobjective discussion of the collector's mentality, following the not-really-newsworthy story of a Superman comic selling $9 million-plus on the speculator market. What's told here, though, is eyebrow raising if it's correct:

You may still remember your first comic book. Do you remember the last time you saw that comic, though?

Depending on what it is and the condition it’s in, it could be worth something – in fact, maybe a few somethings.

Last month, an issue of “Superman” sold for a record-setting $9.12 million at auction. [...]

Superman was the first superhero to appear in pop culture, and his first-ever comic was a limited print. Of the 500,000 copies ever printed of the first edition, it’s estimated that fewer than 500 remain in existence today, Lon Allen, vice president of comics at Heritage Auctions, told the Associated Press.

Seriously, when the first issue of the Man of Steel's first spinoff series from Action Comics premiered, it only saw less than a million copies printed, no matter how many sold at store level? I'm as big a fan of Supes as the next person, but this, if anything, suggests a lot of Golden Age comics weren't the massive success earlier reports would have us think. So why keep taking such an unobjective position and making it sound like this was all something to celebrate? And then, we're told:

Who is willing to shell out more than what some actors were paid to portray Superman for a comic book?

“People with deep pockets,” according to Griffin.

Among the books sought by those “deep pocket” collectors are the “firsts,” Griffin explained, like Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics (No. 27, published in 1939) and “Marvel Comics No.1.” A version of the former sold for $1.82 million in 2024, while a copy of the latter garnered more than $2.4 million in 2022. A single page from a 1984 comic, “Secret Wars No. 8,” sold for $3.36 million, all thanks to the first-ever appearance of Spider-Man’s black suit. A debut issue of “Captain America Comics” sold for $3.1 million in 2022.

“They’re always going to be expensive and will probably just continue to be as time progresses because there’s going to be less and less of books like this coming out of the woodwork,” Griffin added. It’s scarcity and desirability that can influence the value of the comic, according to Griffin, though they’re not always a guarantee. If “there’s just nothing going on in it,” for example, or it’s a book “from the ‘50s that nobody remembers,” there may not be much desirability for it. Some titles or issues can fluctuate in value, with interest peaking when there are rumors of a movie adaptation or a TV show appearance for a certain character. But, once the appearance happens, Griffin says the “book will get soft again.”

Well see, that's a problem. If they're going to base it all upon recognizability and what movies are in production, then it's not a long-ranging success at all, and if the movie adaptations eventually do wear off, then for all we know, even the Golden/Silver Age back issues may lose some value. Which is certainly what happened when production of issues more for the sake of the collector's mentality came about:

Also like baseball cards, comic books experienced an era of mass production, in the 1980s and ’90s, leading to a collapse in the collector market.

“They just put out so many of them, and there were so many people buying two copies and keeping one pristine,” Griffin explained. “There’s just a lot of nice books out there from the time period and not many of them are worth that much.”

If by that he means monetary - not artistic - value, then again, this whole report is a farce. Of course, it's disturbing to think of how even some Rob Liefeld monstrosities of the times could sell big among certain speculators, because they actually think the terrible examples he drew up in the Heroes Reborn series of Capt. America, for example, are actually worth something based on how poor they are? Sorry, but that only further compounds why the collect-for-profit mentality's ruined pop culture.

The market has rebounded, with newer material like manga comics and Pokémon becoming more popular among collectors. That, Griffin said, is fueled by those who enjoyed them in their youth now having the buying power to collect.

I have a bad feeling even the manga in mention is only being collected for profit, which should serve as a warning there's a whole segment of "fandom" out there that doesn't care about manga as an artistic medium either, just as a source of financial greed. That's bad news too, for anyone who believes Japan can have potential if the cards are played right. Then, towards the end:

If you’re hoping to get into comic book collecting, you may not have the financial wiggle room to vie for a $9.12 million “Superman” comic. Instead, Griffin recommends finding “something that you like and collect that.”

“That way, even if it goes down, you’re still going to be happy that you bought it.”

Note how, oddly enough, the interviewee doesn't say you should actually make an effort to read it. And if not, then what good is it to collect? Why not recommend buying comics in paperback/hardcover format for reading and entertainment value? So again, we have another article where nobody comments on the comics from a merit-based perspective, and they're really insulting the medium's potential with the way they approach the whole topic. And those "deep pockets" should be ashamed of themselves for what they're doing to the products, hoarding them away instead of donating them to a museum.

Labels: dc comics, history, manga and anime, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, Spider-Man, Superman

The Times of Israel reported 2 documentaries about cartoonist Spiegelman, author of Maus, will be screened at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, and in the article, some more troubling clues to what's wrong with his mindset turn up:

Spiegelman will not be in Jerusalem for the event; he’s only been in Israel once, for a bar mitzvah trip in 1961, which he described as uncomfortable in an interview with the New York Review of Books in March this year.

“Every young man carried a rifle,” he told the New York Review. “I am very grateful that my parents ended up in America after the war. I’ve always been more comfortable taking my chances in the Diaspora.”

I get the feeling the man who reportedly says he's spent much of his life trying to not think about Israel is an opponent of the 2nd Amendment to boot. I get the strange feeling he sees little difference between armies representing goodness and the National Socialists of Germany from WW2. And that's decidedly troubling.

The New York-based Spiegelman has related to Israel’s war with Hamas sparingly but fiercely over the last two years, collaborating with cartoonist Joe Sacco to create the comic “Never Again!”

In it, he and Sacco draw themselves and their pained reactions to the war sparked by the Hamas terror onslaught in Israel on October 7, 2023. Spiegelman calls Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocidish,” while remarking that he doesn’t ever want “Maus” to be a recruiting poster for the Israeli army.

Still, said Philip Dolin, one of the filmmakers behind “The Hell of Auschwitz: Maus by Art Spiegelman,” the Hamas-led atrocities weren’t part of his film, noting, “you don’t have to talk about everything.”

Perhaps it's better if he didn't, because his collaborations with Sacco tell enough what's disturbing about Spiegelman's MO. That said, something very absurd turns up in the article:

There are no bans on books in Europe, said Horovitz, but caution and concern about antisemitism are present in her life in Paris, a subject that she discusses with her children.

What kind of naive idiocy is this? Back in the early 90s, Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses was banned in some areas (and only recently, un-banned in India) and it could happen to him, it's not impossible for it to happen to Spiegelman's GNs. But if he really sees nothing wrong with Islam, that could make one reasonably wonder if Spiegelman would conclude it's okay for the Religion of Peace to determine whether his work should remain in print or not, in contrast to the sources he complained were censoring Maus in USA schools. A serious flaw in this news is that, while it brings up antisemitism in France, it doesn't clearly mention that Islamic fundamentalism is driving it in modern times.

Somebody said in the comments section:

Maybe Art Spiegelman should have gone back to Israel after his bar mitzvah and got to know it better, become more acquainted with the realities lived there. It might have caused less confusion and taken away the equivalence he seems to give the horrors of the Hamas invasion and Israel's response in Gaza. It's about not only surviving, Art Spiegelman, but ensuring attempted genocide cannot take place again.

Yup. Unfortunately, Spiegelman's somebody who's given clues he's not interested in writing about how victims of horrifying crimes in modernity feel. That double-standard cheapens the impact of Maus, plain and simple. What Spiegelman's told just compounds my disinterest in watching his documentaries.

Labels: censorship issues, comic strips, conventions, Europe and Asia, history, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism, violence

Sora News 24 wrote about the dissolving of Gainax, one of the most notable anime studios, and one of their contributors, Hideako Anno, was disappointed it's now gone. But, there's also scandals involved, to the point you have to wonder if it's for the best they closed:

Anno posted about the development on December 11 on the official website of Khara, the studio he established in 2006 after leaving Gainax. According to the statement, as of December 10 Gainax no longer exists as a corporation, having been completely dissolved and liquidated.

It’s a sad, but not shocking, end to Gainax, which was formally founded in Christmas Eve in 1984, meaning it just barely missed making it to its 41st birthday. Over the years, instability was one of the few near-constants for Gainax. Established by college-age amateur artists who produced the fabled Daicon festival opening animation student films, most of the Gainax staff was always clearly more interested in the artistry of making anime than managing the economic realities and responsibilities of operating on a professional scale. Shady accounting and tax evasion, whether to prop up the company’s perennially shaky financial foundation or simply for personal greed, got Gainax’s then-president Yasuhiro Takeda and the company’s tax accountant arrested in 1999, at a time when Evangelion was a huge hit and had revenue pouring into the company.

In 2016, 10 years after Anno had formed Khara, his company sued Gainax over unpaid royalties from Gainax properties Anno had been involved in, resulting in a messy courtroom dispute that ended in Khara’s favor. Three years later, in 2019, Gainax’s then-president Tomohiro Maki, who was 50 years old at the time, was arrested on charges of taking nude photographs of a teenage girl who had entered into a contract with Gainax in hopes of becoming an anime voice actress. This sunk Gainax’s reputation to an even lower level, with a subsequent restructuring including the creation of a new board of directors with the goal of rebuilding the company. Anno, who was a Gainax shareholder, and Khara also lent support, but even these combined efforts have proven to be not enough to save Gainax.

“I am genuinely saddened, but quietly accepting of the situation,” said Anno in his statement regarding Gainax’s final fate. “I wish to express our gratitude and respect to all of the individuals and organizations who have been working without compensation for nearly six years, since the arrest of former representative director and president Tomohiro Maki in 2019.”

It sure sounds like Gainax's reputation was tarnished, and while they may have had some gems to offer in their resume, it's clear they were affected in the long run by the scandals, the latter which is serious, and so, maybe it's best they've now gone out of business. Here's also a report on Automaton Media, which says:

In an official statement posted on Khara’s homepage, Anno expressed gratitude to the individuals and companies who helped with the reconstruction and subsequent liquidation of Gainax, particularly after the arrest of then-president and representative director Tomohiro Maki in 2019 (Maki was charged with sexually assaulting an underage voice actress). Anno thanked all parties for dedicating nearly six years of work without compensation to ensure that the rights of each Gainax project, along with their associated materials and documents, were returned to their rightful owners through proper legal procedures.

If Maki did worse than take lewd photos of the actress, he's just as bad as Harvey Weinstein. Whatever the quality of their anime productions, the studio's reputation was clearly tainted by Maki's crime, so again, it's probably for the best they've folded, though other studios obviously aren't any cleaner of mistakes than Gainax was. We can only hope lessons will be learned from what's been told about Gainax.

Labels: Europe and Asia, history, manga and anime, misogyny and racism, violence

Something I hadn't quite noticed in the past few months is that, apparently realizing all the failures of turning Carol Danvers - whom they'd already forced out of her role as Ms. Marvel for the sake of a Muslim character - into a new Captain Marvel, the modern Marvel management has recently reverted Danvers halfway back...to her role in the mid-80s as Binary, as first appeared in X-Men. And here's what Adventures in Poor Taste said about the first part of a miniseries that might be part of their future-set Age of Revelation event, although, what's dismaying here is that they had to regurgitate another specific storyline from X-Men that should've been put to rest long ago:

The Phoenix Force is one of the most powerful cosmic entities in the Marvel universe and a nexus of psionic energy. It is a force of creation, but also one capable of devastating destruction. Over the years, the Phoenix Force has had many hosts who have bonded with and possessed the power of the Phoenix. The most frequent and by far most famous host of the Phoenix is the mutant telekinetic-telepath Jean Grey; however, some of the Phoenix Force’s other hosts include Rachel and Scott Summers, Illyana and Piotr Rasputin, Emma Frost, Namor, and Quentin Quire. In From the Ashes, Jean Grey was once again Phoenix, but now in Age of Revelation, there is a new Phoenix, someone who has a long established history with the X-Men.

In Binary #1, Jean Grey is dead, and Carol Danvers has been chosen to be the new host for the Phoenix Force. From Carol’s narration, we learn that Jean personally selected Carol to be the one to transfer the power of the Phoenix Force after her death. As of this issue, we do not know when or how Jean Grey died, or why she chose Carol to be the new host for the Phoenix Force, but perhaps Stephanie Phillips will fill in that information in subsequent issues of Binary. When asked in our X-Men Monday whether we will find out what happened to Jean Grey, Stephanie Phillips gave a somewhat cryptic response saying, “Yes. But it won’t be what you think… or what Carol thinks…”

In some ways, Carol is a logical choice to replace Jean as host of the Phoenix Force. For one, like Jean, Carol is also brave, heroic, selfless, and compassionate. These qualities make her a worthy and capable host, one who can handle the responsibility that comes with the awesome power of the Phoenix Force. Carol also has experience and proven success when it comes to cosmic abilities. During the events of the Brood Saga, Carol became a cosmic-powered hero named Binary in Uncanny X-Men #164 after absorbing the power of a white hole, which allowed her to generate the power of a star. In Binary #1, Carol says that being Binary was the closest she came to possessing any power comparable to that of the Phoenix; therefore, choosing to adopt the name Binary once again seemed appropriate.

This is real groaner. As though it weren't bad enough that in the past decade, Carol's femininity was defaced horrifically for the sake of a very unfeminine take on feminism, now, she's been shoved into a role of an entity that ended up being portrayed as monumentally lethal and wiped out inhabitants of a foreign galaxy 45 years ago in X-Men. And AIPT's writer sees nothing wrong with that? This is humiliatingly bad, and IIRC, Carol was only written spending time with the X-Men 2-3 years in the early 80s, following the storyline from 1981's Avengers Annual. Also note how the columnist blabbers about how several characters since the turn of the century went on to possess the Phoenix force, as though nothing was wrong with greenlighting such shoddy scripts that regurgitated a storyline that had been reduced to a case of kicking a dead horse. Why do modern writers think only a story about a girl seemingly possessing powers even more deadly than what Annihilus was armed with makes for spectacular storytelling? All the Phoenix Saga led to was a repulsive cliche that should've been put to rest long ago.

As bad as the premise they're going with happens to be, this does seem to suggest Marvel's publishers realize Carol Danvers no longer sells under the Capt. Marvel moniker, and they certainly did run it all into the ground in over a decade, with The Marvels movie quite possibly discouraging them from keeping on with using it. It reminds me of the failure of the Jonah Hex movie 15 years ago - after that, a series DC was publishing starring the 19th century western bounty hunter with a disfigured face was cancelled, and any further stories starring Hex were published under the title All-Star Western, a revival of the Bronze Age series which was where Hex first appeared in 1972. Funny how it can take a whole Hollywood fiasco to persuade some publishers it's not worth keeping on with the kind of farces they are these days. Yet story merit remains missing from the mainstream, and now while Marvel, in a manner of speaking, gave Carol back her 2nd moniker, is not improving the situation when they repeatedly make use of a storyline that was recycled in the worst possible ways in nearly 45 years. Modern writers have got to stop rehashing the Phoenix Saga already.

Labels: history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, women of marvel, X-Men

The Times of Israel interviewed a UC San Diego professor, Thomas Levy, who published a GN autobiography titled The Boomer Archaeologist, about how archaeological and academia studies have evolved over 50 years, and today, it's regrettably collapsing:

When the Yom Kippur War broke out in Israel on October 6, 1973, American citizen Thomas Levy was in Athens studying Greek after working at a dig in a small prehistoric site in the north of the country.

Twenty years old at the time, he made his way to Israel to help out and spent two months milking cows at Kibbutz Eilot in the Arava Valley before flying back to Arizona, where he was attending college.

Today a prominent archaeologist, Levy tells the story in his newly released autobiography, “The Boomer Archaeologist – A Graphic Memoir of Tribes, Identity and the Holy Land,” illustrated by Levy’s niece Lily Almeida. The memoir was designed by Bhaveshkumar Suru and published by British academic publisher Equinox.

The book covers Levy’s life journey from Southern California, where he was born to Jewish parents whose families had fled Europe at the end of the 19th century, to Israel and back. It distills his own version of the American dream, archaeological work on four continents — including some revolutionary discoveries from the time of King David — and how, at the age of 72, he likes to joke that there only two things he knows how to do in life, archaeology and milking cows.

“This book is my story, a personal kind of coming-of-age story, but it’s also a story about how the field of archaeology has changed from the old days of doing surveys with paper maps and a compass, to this amazing world of cyber-archeology today,” Levy recently told The Times of Israel, meeting at a cafe in Jerusalem.

“At the same time, it’s also the story of how the American academia has changed over the years,” he added.

And how exactly? Here's the explanation, which he discussed in his GN:

At the same time, the atmosphere at UC San Diego, as at many other American universities, began to change dramatically.

“I was very privileged to get a job at one of the best research universities in the United States, and I kind of trace the degradation of that sort of elite,” he told The Times of Israel. “It used to be based on merit, and then it changed to a system that focuses on racial identity politics, and it’s really not healthy for research.”

In the book, he recalled that in 2010, he was working with a group of five students to examine artifacts from Jordan. After Levy praised their work as “the best of our meritocracy,” one of the students responded that “meritocracy is racism.”

Levy explained that in recent years it’s become increasingly difficult, to the point of being impossible, to work with students and prepare them for excellence in the field.

“I find that a lot of American graduate students today are not as invested in the adventure and excitement of archaeology,” he said. “The old way of being a graduate student was like a mentor-mentee relationship with the professor. Now, people count the hours; everything is monitored. It’s not fun anymore.”

What's particularly troubling is that the student undoubtably took the ethnic studies professor's claim entirely at face value. But at least Levy's bringing up an issue that's been harming academia for a long time now, and in illustrated format, creatively enough. Ironically, if the student alluded to in the GN buys all the aforementioned ethnic studies professor says, then in a way, it's like a mentor-mentee relation, but in a dark, distorted reflection type of way, as it amounts more to indoctrination. Perhaps academics like Levy might want to draw a whole comic about stuff like that?

And if today's USA students don't care for archaeology, it's a component of a college mentality that doesn't care about history in general, and that too is not a good omen. It's something in serious and vital need of change, and improvement. And we can only hope comics-style books are a good way to tackle the subject.

Labels: censorship issues, Europe and Asia, history, indie publishers, msm propaganda, politics, science

A writer at the American Thinker went to watch Disney's Zootopia 2 at the movie theaters, and understandably worries it contains stealth apologia for Islam while damning capitalism by contrast:

Here comes the big spoiler: Naturally, Judy is right about the snake’s innocence. It is the evil (and wildly capitalist) Lynxley family that is the real deadly criminal. In other words, Disney has backed away from spouting transgender nonsense and is squarely in the world of anti-capitalism. I would expect nothing less from modern Disney.

However (and now I put on my tinfoil hat), I think there is more going on than one of the world’s biggest corporations taking an ax to capitalism. I think that this is also an effort to tell people, just as Pope Leo recently did, that we really don’t need to worry about bringing Muslims into our countries.

The obvious premise of both movies, of course, is tolerance—to the point in which carnivores somehow managed to live side-by-side with herbivores without eating them. However, “Gary da Snake” takes that premise a step further.

One of the things you need to know is that six out of the world’s seven continents have venomous snakes. They are everywhere, except Antarctica, which is too cold. Across those six continents, there are approximately 600 to 700 venomous snakes. That is a lot of snakes from which to choose when casting an animated movie about peaceful coexistence.

So what did Disney choose? It chose a pit viper, which comes from the Nusa Tenggara region in Indonesia, which is...wait for it…97% Muslim. What are the odds?

The problem, of course, is that history shows that Islam has conquest built into it. For that reason, it has never played well with others. And well, there are certainly wonderful and peaceful Muslim people the world over, and there are regions where Islam has developed fairly peacefully, the Muslims who are making their way en masse to the West do not, as a collective, subscribe to peaceful coexistence.

Of course, tinfoil hat or not, I know that the children who watch the movie are not looking up the fact that Gary comes originally from a region that is 97% Muslim. I agree that this is subtext at a very deep level. However, the overarching message is that exotic immigrants who have the manifest ability to kill us are nevertheless completely harmless, while the snake’s Muslim home is Disney’s little inside joke. And that, I think, is a very dangerous message.

Yes, of course. That said, when studios like Disney took up pandering to LGBT ideology in the past decade, they quite possibly did so as a way of obscuring valid concerns about Islam through use of another 5th column ideology. Now, for all we know, Disney, as a leading representative of Hollywood, could be turning back to whitewashing the Religion of Peace, as some studios did in the past 2 decades post-911. If so, then depending how you view the issue, it does put the lie to the whole notion they actually favor LGBT ideology if they have no qualms over the Religion of Peace's objections to it.

Another problem with Zootopia 2 is that the snakes in the film could also be a metaphor for sex offenders, and Disney's had quite a problem with employees like that for goodness knows how long; maybe as far back as the 50s or 60s. If that's what the new cartoon is driving at, then Disney's modern management has brought them down to ever more heinous levels. So, what good does it do to continue financing Disney's cartoon production at the box office? Some could also argue their shift to 3D animation is another problem, because how are children supposed to be able to appreciate even simpler forms of animation that aren't 3D computer generated? There's too many like that coming out of Hollywood today, and if expensive special effects are a problem, maybe 3D animation could also be a problem in a similar regard. So if Tinseltown needs to cut back on expensive components for live action, maybe animation needs to do the same? Consider that Japanimation by and large doesn't rely on 3D, and its audience largely prefers 2D animation. I think that's a pretty good direction to go in, so maybe it's time for Hollywood to consider that 3D animation isn't everything.

But above all, they have to start finding a moral compass, and stop exploiting cartoons as leftist propaganda for children.

Labels: animation, Europe and Asia, golden calf of LGBT, golden calf of villainy, history, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, politics, terrorism, violence

Last month, the Game of Thrones author was interviewed by Popverse, and told them he's supposedly let down by endless retcons, reboots and, most significantly, how the Spider-marriage was dismantled:

Comic book fans have grown somewhat numb to the dreaded retcon over the years. Depending on the company, retcons and reboots may come with alarming frequency, often rewriting established canon to make way for something new. For Game of Thrones author and firmly established Spider-Man fan George R. R. Martin, this has become a growing source of frustration over the years.

During a conversation with Popverse, George R. R. Martin talked about his love for comic books, relishing in the fact that there are decades of comics to read so he’ll never risk running out. However, he did have one issue with the way comic books are handled.

“I do have frustrations with it, too, I have to admit,” he explains. “I sometimes… I don’t like retcons. I don’t like reboots. You know, I’m watching, I’m following a character or a superhero or something for years, sometimes decades, and then they come and say, ‘Oh, no. None of that stuff happened. We’re just going to start the whole thing over again.’ That always annoys the hell out of me.”

Martin cited one specific and very famous retcon that Marvel pulled years ago as an example.

“Peter Parker married Mary Jane,” he said, referencing the (in)famous Spider-Man One More Day and Brand New Day storylines where Spider-Man had his marriage to Mary Jane erased from continuity. “You can’t undo these things, but they do nowadays. But what can you do?”

We’re with you, George R. R. Martin. We’re still not over those Spider-Man retcons either.

If they really meant what they said, they'd be calling for a boycott more than 2 decades ago. They would've made a case for having Joe Quesada dismissed from Marvel's payroll, much like Jim Shooter was back in 1987. Indeed, how is it Shooter could've been fired back in the day, but Quesada never was, and only left the publisher on his own accord in the past few years? Whatever, the issue with figures like Martin is that they wouldn't make a case for why terrible writers/artists/editors can't remain employed by the companies they say they love. And again, nobody even suggests buying out the Marvel/DC publishing arms, if that could prove a good, if not perfect, way to lay out the groundswork for improvement.

And an argument could also be made that this is awfully rich for somebody who developed an ultra-violent franchise like Game of Thrones to be the one to raise the issue. While Martin's disappointment is appreciated in and of itself, it's still no excuse for how revolting GoT happens to be. Ultra-violence is one of the biggest problems with modern "entertainment" nowadays too, and perhaps Martin would like to develop a fantasy series in novels and TV that's less reliant on the shock value GoT was known for, before he makes the case for Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson in his own words? That could be making a much needed improvement for a change.

Labels: bad editors, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, violence, women of marvel

The sale, for all we know, might've been done out of spite by the incumbent WB management for what they perceived as business mogul David Ellison's favorable stand for Donald Trump. But now, as told in the following biased Forbes report, the unreliable Netflix may be on the brink of buying out WB's enterprises, and if so, they also get access to DC comics products in the process. Writer Rob Salkowitz sure is gushy about it:

Netflix acquired Warner Bros. – the studio behind James Gunn’s Superman – for $83 billion. It’s a smart move with some added super power given that, earlier this month, a copy of the historic first issue of the Superman comics sold for a record $9.1 million.

Netflix has the inside track on acquiring Warner Bros. Studios from Discovery, a trove of classic American IP that includes, among other things, DC Comics and its film, television, licensing and animation derivatives.

While the Netflix deal has a host of regulatory and other challenges to clear, it is not too early to start gaming out what the change in ownership could mean for the country’s oldest comic book publisher. DC’s latest cinematic universe, under the stewardship of James Gunn and Peter Safran, has barely uttered “up, up and away!” but is already showing promise, with Superman pulling a respectable $616 million this summer, good for #9 on the 2025 box office revenue charts.

Look how Salkowitz fluff-coats the box office results, this despite reports Gunn's Superman film wasn't the serious success they want all to believe it was. Of course, how could you truly expect somebody like Salkowitz to care about merit more than money?

But DC, with its thousands of trademarked characters and nearly 90 years of publishing history, has the most facets. Especially with Marvel suffering from a prolonged bout of cinema fatigue, DC represents the most extensive library of pop culture lore, with the greatest potential for further exploitation. If Netflix’s interest here is IP ownership rather than just production and distribution synergies, DC is probably contributing an outsized portion of the value of the deal.

Historically, Netflix has not shown much interest in the publishing side. It farms its own IP such as Stranger Things out to Dark Horse Comics, for example. But it probably doesn’t hurt that DC is riding a creative and commercial hot streak thanks to the success of its Absolute lineup, including the year’s breakout hit, Absolute Batman.

According to ICv2, which tracks developments in the comics and pop culture industry, DC’s market share is up nearly 10% from 2024, at nearly 30% of the comic store direct market, only 6% behind longtime rival Marvel. That’s as strong as DC has been in a generation, and the financial success has been accompanied by strong buzz among fans and collectors.

For a business-oriented magazine, their writer makes no effort any more than ICV2 to provide clear sales figures to prove DC's really worth buying for what it sells. And if they don't sell in millions, then it's farcical to lecture us like this. But the part about collectors...yes, that I understand, and it puts Salkowitz's sincerity in serious doubt. If he's never argued in favor of comics switching to paperback/hardcovers only, that's another minus to his record.

There is still a long road ahead for this deal to fall into place, especially if Paramount Skydance throws sand in the gears or the administration takes a dim view of an asset like CNN falling into potentially unfriendly hands.

But if it does work out, and Netflix sees how an IP factory like DC aligns with its longer term objectives, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship, in the words of a long-ago Warner Bros classic.

Sorry, but chances are this buyout could prove discouraging, especially considering Netflix lost subscribers over their PC production values. Even though some of WB's recent offerings most certainly have been as woke as can be, and with the way they've handled DC comics, why should we believe anything will change? In fact, why must we believe things will change for the better under Skydance's ownership? I remember when Isaac Perlmutter was in charge of Marvel movie production, and what good did even he do for the comics? Perhaps the most frustrating problem about the whole situation is that nobody's offering to buy away the publishing arms of DC/Marvel, considering the comics are what could use improvement, far more than the movies.

Here's what Daniel Greenfield at Front Page says about this looming purchase:

Netflix wants the Warners IPs and HBO which it will roll into the streaming monster, pull movies from theaters 5 minutes after they’re released and then stream them for its gated subscription platform. Considering that Netflix suffers from systemic wokeness on a scale above much of Hollywood, assume Batman will become a black trans man.

If this business deal goes through, sure, if they think they can get away with such an atrocity, they will enable something that awful.

Now, Breitbart's reporting that Paramount's launched a hostile takeover bid for WB. Even so, it would be foolish to assume that if they succeed, it would literally lead to an improved standing for DC. If the aforementioned Perlmutter did nothing to improve Marvel, why must we assume any particular Hollywooder will do the same for DC within an instant? What really matters is if Marvel/DC could be under a wholly separate ownership, not a conglomerate. Then there might be a better chance. And for now, that's not materializing.

Labels: animation, dc comics, licensed products, msm propaganda, politics, sales